


Black Coffee

by Bronnwyn



Series: Kastle One-Shots [3]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, frank castle is in love with karen page pass it on
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-28
Updated: 2016-03-28
Packaged: 2018-05-29 19:20:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6389875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bronnwyn/pseuds/Bronnwyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karen's hair looks nice today.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Black Coffee

**Author's Note:**

> MA'AM. Also, I'm glad you guys are enjoying these.

She almost said _this isn’t what it looks like_ before better judgement settled in.

Untangling herself from Frank Castle’s ironclad grip, she got to her feet and smoothed the wrinkles from her skirt. In her half-awoken stupor, she wondered how Matt knew where to find her. Then she remembered she’d given him her address. And he’d been here multiple times. Of course.

“Matt,” she said, “what’re you—what’re you doing here? How—how did you get in?”

Matt had a way of staring at her that she was sure he could see right _through_ her. “The door was unlocked,” he said. He gripped his cane, knuckles bugling white.

She glanced over her shoulder at Frank. He remained motionless on the couch. He was staring at her, too.

She clasped her hands in front of her to keep them from fidgeting. “I must have forgotten to lock it last night. Stupid of me, but, ah…”

“As long as you’re safe,” Matt said. There was an edge to his voice. He no doubt heard the rustling of _two_ alarmed people when he came in. Staring thing aside, Matt had an uncanny ability to know exactly who was in the room without his sight to guide him. Yeah. He probably knew. Christ.

Alarm festered to annoyance. She frowned down at her bare feet. They’d _just_ had this conversation a few days prior. _I’m not yours to protect._ It was true then and it’s true now. “I’m fine, Matt. Now, if there isn’t anything else, you can go.”

Matt hesitated. Frank remained completely still.

Karen grew all the more annoyed. “Well?” She asked.

“I wanted to see if you’d like to go out for break—”

She really didn’t want to hear the end of that question. Matt Murdock sure had some balls, didn’t he? “No, Matt, I _don’t_ want to go out for breakfast with you. I just…I want you to go, okay? Leave.”

“Karen,” he began, then his mouth flattened to a solemn line. He turned on the heels of his shiny oxfords and grabbed the edge of the door. “Fine. I’ll talk to you later.” Before he went, he smiled. A funny quirk of his lips that looked more like a grimace than anything. “Had I known you had company, I wouldn’t have come over.”

The door shut, and he was gone.

Yep. He knew.

It was stupid of her to think he wouldn’t realize who else was there. He just _knew_. It had to be his superpower or something.

Karen had to physically force herself to relax. She pressed her palms to her heavy eyes, sucked in a breath through her teeth. Among all the annoyance ran an undercurrent of guilt. Guilt for…for something. She didn’t quite understand what it was. Guilt for falling asleep with a murderer? Guilt for “cheating” on Matt even though they weren’t together?

_He_ was the one with that woman in his bed, after all. An innocent nap with Frank Castle hardly counted among her wrongdoings, right? Right.

Hands falling limply to her sides, she went to her sad excuse for a kitchen and turned the coffee pot back on. It was full and cold and likely a little stale, but she didn’t care. If Matt randomly appearing had any indication of what the rest of her day would be like, she’d be needing the entire pot.

“We might have to fight over that thing.”

It was Frank, she knew damn good and _well_ it was Frank. But that didn’t stop her gut from having its reaction. Body tensing, she swung around, mug in hand, and nearly smashed the thing over his head. Frank stepped out of the way with his burly sort of grace and raised his hands in surrender. Anyone else and she’d have thought they were mocking her.

“Easy,” he said.

She laughed a bit at her own paranoia, then put the mug down. Still god damn exhausted. It never stopped. “Sorry.”

He accepted her apology with a nearly imperceptible nod. Gestured to the door. “You…all right? With that?”

She recognized by now that this was his way of working through her feelings. He never prodded overmuch. He just sort of… _asked._ He asked, or he assumed, and his assumptions were almost always right. Maybe that was _his_ superpower. “Honestly, I have no idea. I don’t…I don’t want to think about him right now.”

Funny. She hasn’t wanted to think about him at all since she met up with Frank.

Looking at him now, in this dimly lit corner of her crappy apartment, she realized he wasn’t very tall. In fact, they were about the same height, depending on whether she was wearing heels or not. The bruising around his eyes wasn’t any better than it had been, but his nose was less swollen so that had to count for something.

Frank caught her gaze. He didn’t comment on her staring, rather he asked for his own mug, ma’am, and she obliged. The coffee wasn’t hot quite yet. Frank didn’t care. He poured himself a cup anyway and gulped it down black. A bit of it drizzled on his chin, which prompted him to wipe his big hand across it. His knuckles. Bruised to hell.

Some wild urging seized her, then, and she couldn’t stop herself from reaching out to grab the offending hand. The bruises swirled like oil in water, bluish and iridescent in the right light. Angry red swells surrounded the bruises and some of the skin had been torn off, scabbed. “Jesus, Frank,” she muttered. “Was this from…”

He took his hand back, not ungently. “Yeah.”

Yeah.

She poured more coffee into his mug, then poured some for herself. They drank in silence, looking at one another with the curiosity of two people who barely knew each other, but who had already shared such an intense intimacy that neither of them could really deny it.

It was certainly strange. Feeling like you know everything about a person when you really don’t.

When the last of the coffee was poured into Frank’s mug, Karen took it upon herself to change. She had ten million different things to do today and none of them could be done in the clothes from the night before. Her blouse had a coffee stain on it and she’d been wearing the same skirt for three days in the hopes no one noticed.

No one did. Or, if they did, they were too polite to say anything about it.

Once she’d picked out something decent, she got dressed, ran a brush through her hair a few times, jammed her feet into yet another pair of Payless shoes, then hurried to the bathroom. She hadn’t heard a thing from the living room.

With her teeth brushed and her makeup applied to the best of her ability, Karen Page returned to Frank Castle. He lounged by the door, broad shoulder propped against the wall. He was wearing his hat. And his jacket. Like always.

“I’m gonna get out of here,” he said simply.

“Oh,” she replied. Like it was a surprise or something. It wasn’t. He had to get going. Of course. He was technically a fugitive and hanging out here probably wasn’t the best idea. “Okay.”

Frank blinked. He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “Your hair.”

“What about it?” She asked, giving it a self-conscious run-through.

He lifted the shoulder that wasn’t propped against the wall. “Looks nice.”

“You’re kidding.” It hadn’t been washed in a couple days and it did _not_ look nice.

Frank flashed her one of his rare smiles, rubbing at his scruffy jaw. “Now, ma’am, why would I kid about somethin’ like that, huh?”

“To get in my pants?”

He laughed a little and she decided that she liked it when he laughed. It was a nice sound. Like whiskey on a cold night. “See, that’d work if you ever wore pants, ma’am, but you always, uh…” He gestured at her skirt.

She found herself laughing right back, shaking her head at this ridiculous flirtation of theirs. Because that’s what this was. Flirtation. She’d brought it up so she had to reap the consequences of what she’d done, but…It caught her off guard at how much she liked it.

Usually she was quick to rebuff advances of any kind. She didn’t have the time nor the patience for it. But with Frank? Frank was so…

He didn’t _expect_ anything from her. He didn’t _want_ anything from her. She wasn’t that scared girl sitting in her coworker’s blood, screaming about how she didn’t do it. She wasn’t that small-town expat from Vermont. She was simply _ma’am._

Which brought her to her next question.

“Frank,” she said, laughter fading. She tucked a loose strand of not-so-nice hair behind her hear. “When are you ever going to call me Karen?”

He turned toward the door, twisting the doorknob. His jacket was stained with something. Not coffee. Darker. “You have a nice day, ma’am.”

So that’s how this was gonna be, huh? She wasn’t surprised.

“Where are you going?” She asked.

“To see a guy about a dog,” he said, and left without another word.


End file.
